Nicholas P. Sullivan 
You Can Hear Me Now 
How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the World’s Poor To the Global Economy

Bangladeshi villagers sharing cell phones helped build what is now
a thriving company with more than $200 million in annual profits.
But what is the lesson for the rest of the world? This is a
question author Nicholas P. Sullivan addresses in his tale of a new
kind of entrepreneur, Iqbal Quadir, the visionary and catalyst
behind the creation of Grameen Phone in Bangladesh.

Grameen Phone–a partnership between Norway’s Telenor and
Grameen Bank, co-winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize–defines
a new approach to building business opportunities in the developing
world. You Can Hear Me Now offers a compelling account of
what Sullivan calls the ‘external combustion engine’–a
combination of forces that is sparking economic growth and lifting
people out of poverty in countries long dominated by aid-dependent
governments. The ‘engine’ comprises three forces: information
technology, imported by native entrepreneurs trained in
the West, backed by foreign investors.

Table of Content

Preface vii

The Author xv

Introduction: The Three Forces of xvii

External Combustion

Part I: The Grameen Phone Story

1. Connectivity Is Productivity 3

2. Dish-Wallahs of Delhi (and Other 17 Early Models)

3. Cell Phone as Cow: A New Paradigm in Search of Investors
35

4. On the Money Trail in Scandinavia 51

5. Building a Company 71

6. Building a Network 87

Part II: Transformation Through Technology

7. Wildfire at the Bottom of the Pyramid 107

8. Cell Phone as Wallet 125

9. Wealth Creation and Rural Income Opportunities 145

10. Beyond Phones: In Search of a New ‘Cow’ 161

11. Eyeing the Dhaka Stock Exchange 181

Epilogue 199

Notes 203

Resources 215

Index 217

About the author

Nicholas P. Sullivan has written widely about technology and
entrepreneurship, as well as international development issues. He
is publisher of the journal Innovations:
Technology/Governance/Globalization (MIT Press), and a partner in
the Global Horizon Fund, a private-equity fund for emerging
markets. This is his second book.

www.youcanhearmenow.com